Paw of the Jungle

by Diane Kelly

  I raised victorious fists in the air. “Woo-hoo!”

  The detective gestured to my car. “Get in. You drive. I’ll navigate.”

  I slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine. Stay strong, Mubanga! Brigit and I are coming to your rescue!

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  SMELLS LIKE ACTION

  Brigit

  The cruiser smelled like rhino poop, but it also smelled of human adrenaline. When Megan smelled like this, it often meant they were in for some fun. Of course other times Megan smelled like adrenaline and nothing happened. Police work was a crap shoot.

  Megan drove like a bat out of hell, increasing the odds of a takedown. Brigit wagged her tail in anticipation, wondering what lay in store for her and her partner tonight. Whatever it was, she hoped it would earn her a whole box of liver treats.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  ROADBLOCKS

  Trevor Fleming

  It took everything in him not to lay on his horn as yet another asshole cut him off. Now he knew how long-haul truckers felt when people constantly cut in front of them.

  He’d been on the road for over half an hour and had gotten nowhere. He hadn’t even made it to the interstate. He’d stupidly left his garage during the height of rush hour. Now, something had happened up ahead, a wreck of some sort. He could see the flashing lights on a fire truck and a couple of cop cars. Just what I need. Police. But what could he do? He was boxed in.

  Another siren sounded behind him as an ambulance rolled up, slowing down to get through the traffic. Only the far right lane was getting through. The cars continued to merge to the right, continued to cut him off when he attempted to take his turn. Everyone was so damn impatient! He raised his middle finger at a woman in an SUV who refused to let him over. She raised hers right back. Bitch. Really, how did this state ever get a reputation for being so friendly?

  He inched forward for ten full minutes before finally reaching the accident site. Traffic came to a total standstill as a cop blew a whistle and held up a hand. Someone was pulled from one of the banged-up cars, placed on a gurney, and wheeled over to an ambulance by a young paramedic with caramel-colored hair and nice curves. If he didn’t already have Vicki, he might be tempted to make a stop at the fire station later, get a closer look at this girl.

  A clang sounded behind him and the truck lurched as the tongue of the trailer bounced. The rhino seemed to have had enough of the trailer and wanted out. He only hoped it wouldn’t use its horn to tear through the aluminum siding.

  When his patience ran out and he feared someone might notice his trailer rocking, he gave up on merging right. Instead, he eased into the center lane and turned left down a side street. It had him heading in the wrong direction, but once he circled south around this mess he could turn north again.

  A block down, his dashboard flashed as a warning light came on. He was running low on gas. Dammit! If he’d had half a brain, he’d have filled up the truck last night before stealing the rhino.

  Box. Of. Rocks.

  FIFTY-NINE

  PING, BANG, BOOM

  Megan

  Thank goodness for technology! While hi-tech gadgets made it easier for criminals to get away with crimes, it also gave law enforcement new ways to intercept evidence and locate suspects. The triangulation system the department’s tech gurus were using now could access data from cell phone towers, measure the relative strength of the signals, and pinpoint the location of a cell phone within a very small range.

  With Bustamente telling me where to go, we made our way through east Fort Worth, heading west, our lights flashing. Even so, we weren’t making great time. It was the tail end of rush hour, and a major wreck on Vickery had traffic backed up. Even when drivers tried to get out of our way, they had a hard time pulling over with so many cars on the road.

  His phone still at his ear, the detective cut a glance my way. “They’re saying the signals haven’t changed for a few minutes now. Either he’s stopped somewhere, or he’s ditched the phone.”

  I prayed it was the former. Please, God! Help us save this rhino!

  He pointed down a side street up ahead. “Turn left there. It’ll get us out of this mess.”

  I made the left turn.

  When we reached the next block, Bustamente repeated what he was being told on the phone. “He’s on the move again.”

  The information was both good news and bad news. It was always easier to nail a nonmoving target. But at least with the signal in motion again, we knew he hadn’t ditched his phone.

  Bustamente pointed through the windshield. “He should be right up there somewhere.”

  I squinted and leaned over my steering wheel for a better view as we sped along. Not seeing a trailer or a black Dodge pickup with a camper shell. No … No … Wait! “That must be him!”

  A few cars ahead, we could see the back end of a white trailer. The back doors were open a few inches, but secured with some type of crossbars.

  As we drew closer, we could see foliage through the narrow opening.

  Bustamente grunted. “You sure that’s him? It looks like that trailer’s full of trees.”

  “Maybe it’s the rhino’s food.”

  “Can a rhino even fit in a trailer that size?”

  I was wondering the same thing. I unrolled my window and stuck my head out to see up ahead. To my dismay, I couldn’t tell from this distance and angle what type of vehicle was pulling the trailer.

  “Is it a black Dodge pickup?” Bustamente asked.

  “I can’t get eyes on it.” The cars between our cruiser and the trailer were taking their sweet time pulling out of the way. Never mind that the law required them to pull right, they didn’t want to give up the two-second advantage they might have over a driver coming up behind them.

  The detective pointed to a Penske rental truck in the adjacent lane. “Think Fleming’s in that truck instead?”

  “Could be.” Ugh! The uncertainty was frustrating. We had to follow the right vehicle or he could get away!

  But which vehicle was the right one?

  SIXTY

  HOWL

  Brigit

  When Megan had unrolled her window, Brigit had caught a strong scent of rhino. She’d also caught the faint sound of a freight train heading their way. She wondered if it would sing its song. Regardless, she’d sing hers.

  She raised her snout and began her deep, throaty wail, the prechorus, if you will. Rrrroooo!

  SIXTY-ONE

  DISAPPEARING ACT

  Trevor Fleming

  AAARGH!

  He banged his hand on his steering wheel, tempted to bang his head on it, too. That cop and her dog were following him in their cruiser.

  What the hell do I do now?

  The engine of his pickup strained and revved with all the weight it was pulling. The truck was supposed to be capable of pulling three times the rhino’s weight, but it was an older model and the engine wasn’t what it used to be. RrrrRRRR! With his luck, the motor would blow and he’d be caught red-handed. He’d be sent back to prison, for who knows how long this time. Everyone had their shorts in a wad about the ugly, stinky beast in his trailer. By the time he was released, Harper would probably be out of high school. If only he could somehow ditch the trailer, maybe drive over a deep pothole and cause it to unhitch. But no. He’d made sure it was securely attached to the tow bar, even added a heavy-gauge safety chain. It had seemed like the smart thing to do at the time.

  RrrRRRrrRRRRR! The engine continued its protest.

  I’m screwed! Royally and thoroughly screwed! He wasn’t King Midas. He was King Dumbass.

  He debated making a run for it, but he knew the cop would sic her dog on him. He couldn’t outrun a shepherd that size. He also debated a surrender, thinking maybe he could put the blame on Molina and work out a plea deal, when another sound met his ears, another engine rumble, this one deeper and more powerful and followed by an elongated WOOO-WOOO. A freight train approached from the north, its headlight
s visible off to the left.

  Wait. Maybe this train is my way out!

  He continued on, putting the pedal to the metal but managing a mere thirty-eight miles per hour with all the weight he was pulling. The cop’s lights continued to flash in his side mirror, joined now by the headlights of the train as it gained on them from the left.

  “Come on!” he yelled in encouragement to his truck. The engine responded with another roar and a shudder. Is it going to die?

  The cop gave him another block or two to pull over and, when he didn’t, she activated her siren. Woo-woo-woo! A competing blare from the train drowned it out. WOOO-WOO!

  Up ahead, just south of the Page Avenue intersection, warning lights flashed, alerting oncoming traffic of the approaching train. Most of the major roads had overpasses or underpasses so that vehicle traffic didn’t have to stop for the trains, but this spot happened to be one of the few in the city with an actual crossing. He usually cursed the trains, but not tonight.

  Still, he’d never make it through if the minivan in front of him didn’t get out of his way. He jammed the ball of his hand against his steering wheel and added his own horn to the mix. HOOOONK!

  A hand came out of the minivan’s driver’s window, another middle finger raised. Texans wouldn’t give up their guns, and they were just as stubborn when it came to lane positions. Hell, they weren’t even yielding to the police cruiser.

  He pulled up close to the van’s bumper and the driver brake-checked him, the red lights on the back of the vehicle flashing. But he had nothing to lose at this point. He didn’t punch his brakes in return. He kept going, tapping the minivan’s back bumper with the front bumper of his pickup. His truck was called a Ram, after all. Bam!

  The minivan driver swerved in surprise, punched the gas to avoid another ramming from behind, and eased over onto the shoulder. If she’d expected him to pull over and exchange insurance information, she had another think coming. Her mouth gaped as he rolled right on by.

  The white arms of the railroad crossing began to descend up ahead. “Come on!” He slapped his dashboard as if spurring on a horse. “Go! Go! Go!”

  The arms continued their descent. To his left, the train continued its approach, the horn blaring a solid note as the engineer must have realized the pickup and trailer on the street alongside the tracks was racing the locomotive toward the intersection. WOOOOOOOO!

  The arm bounced as it reached the bottom of its arc. An instant later it bounced again, this time over his hood as he drove through the railroad crossing. He felt another jerk and jolt as the trailer’s wheels hit the tracks.

  WOOOOOOOOOOO!

  He wasn’t sure what would happen if the trailer didn’t clear the tracks before the train. The rhino would be roadkill. That was certain. The train might even derail. But would the impact break the safety chain and cause the trailer to detach from his truck? Or would he and his truck become roadkill, too?

  His heart twisted. Harper would forever hate him for causing the death of another animal. I’d deserve it if I died here.

  He closed his eyes and held his breath. A second later, he felt the trailer bounce over the other side of the tracks. A split second afterward he felt the whoosh of air as the train rushed past the back of the trailer, missing it by only an inch or two.

  He opened his eyes. We made it!

  SIXTY-TWO

  THE TELLTALE TAIL

  Megan

  Boxed in at the intersection, I banged my hand on the steering wheel and let out a wail of frustration that was completely drowned out by the blare of the train horn. The rhino is in that trailer! We knew it now. Why else would the guy have risked his life racing a train?

  But while we knew the rhino was in the trailer, both were now on the other side of the Union Pacific train, which seemed to be crawling at a snail’s pace and have no end of graffiti-covered cars. Of course it was actually fortunate the trailer was on the other side of the train, rather than mangled under it. That meant Mubanga was still alive, still had a chance to be recovered.

  As the train rattled over the tracks in front of us, I grabbed my radio to contact dispatch. “We need backup. Immediately!”

  The dispatcher said, “What? I can’t hear you over the noise.”

  I tried again, imploring the dispatcher to get backup en route before the truck and trailer could get away. Still, she couldn’t hear me. Argh!

  Bustamente had the same problem with his cell phone. He couldn’t hear the techies on the other end, and they couldn’t hear him.

  Our only hope was to put some distance between my cruiser and the train. One glance to my right told me there was no hope of squeezing in front of the line of cars filling the lane. Checking my rearview mirror, I discovered that the driver behind me had left only a few inches between us. I’d only be able to turn left if the car behind me backed up and gave me some room to maneuver. Of course that car could only back up if the car behind it backed up, too, and so on. Texas roads were full of tailgaters.

  I threw my gearshift into reverse and motioned with my arm for the driver to back up. But between Brigit blocking his view of me and the fact that he was looking down, his gaze locked on his cell phone, he didn’t notice that I was trying to reverse. I pressed my horn to no avail. Ditto for the public address system on my car. Though I demanded he “Back up! Now!”, he never even looked up from his phone. The train noise was too darn loud. All the detective and I could do was sit there, fuming in frustration, as the train cars rattled by, one by one by one.

  Finally, six long minutes later, the red caboose sailed by and the splintered crossing arm lifted.

  The driver of a minivan walked up the shoulder, waving her arms to get my attention. “Hey! Officer! Some guy in a truck rear-ended me!”

  I had bigger things to worry about than a fender bender. The life of a critically endangered black rhino was at stake. Her mouth gaped as I gunned my engine and flew over the tracks, my head whipping side to side as I looked for the trailer and tried dispatch again. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  Thank goodness! I told her we needed backup in our area. Pronto.

  Though it was possible the rhino rustler intended to hide the animal somewhere else within the city limits, he could be planning to make a break for one of the interstates. Heck, he could have reached any of the three major freeways while we were stuck behind the train. But the techies would be able to tell us where he was.

  Or so I’d thought.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Bustamente said into his phone before turning to speak to me. “They lost the signal. He must’ve ditched his phone.”

  I grabbed the mic from the dash once again to contact dispatch. “We need units on Interstates thirty-five, twenty, and thirty,” I demanded. “Air support, too. Be on the lookout for a black Dodge pickup pulling a white trailer. We have reason to believe the stolen rhino is in the trailer.”

  A dozen voices came back, my fellow officers responding to my plea. Unfortunately, given how much time had passed since Trevor Fleming had barreled through the crossing, he could be miles away by now. Time was of the essence when trying to catch a fugitive and, as each minute ticked by, the chances of catching Trevor Fleming and rescuing the rhino diminished.

  A call came in about a fight at a bar near the university. Another came in about a suspected drunk driver. Another came in about a robbery at a gas station. But nobody contacted dispatch to report seeing Fleming or his truck and trailer.

  The detective and I debated our options. We could continue to patrol the area, hoping to find Fleming, but with other units keeping an eye out it seemed redundant. We figured the best thing we could do was keep an eye on his shop. He might try to go back to it. Of course he might decide to ditch his truck and trailer and make a run for it, too. If he did, he’d need help. He could call Uber or Lyft, or even a good old-fashioned cab. Or he could abscond on foot.

  “Or he could go to his home,” the detective sai
d, “wherever that might be.”

  If only he’d updated his driver’s license record when he’d been released, or registered his trailer at his home address.

  As we pulled into Fleming’s old apartment complex to retrieve the cruiser Bustamente had left there earlier, I had an epiphany. I turned to the detective. “I already checked the DMV records to see if Fleming owns a trailer or a black Dodge pickup. No trailer or vehicles are registered in his name. I thought they might be registered in his wife’s name, but he’s not married.”

  “And?”

  “What about his kid? Remember that heart on the wall of his shop? It said I Love You Daddy and had a girl’s name on it.” I remembered the curly tail on the letter p. “Harper. That was her name. Maybe she can lead us to him.”

  I logged in to my laptop and ran a search of the birth records. Sure enough, there was a Harper Fleming who’d been born seven years ago and fathered by a Trevor Fleming. Her mother was listed as a Victoria Skarsgard. The residence listed for both the father and mother was the address where we now sat. In other words, useless.

  “Run the mother’s name through the DMV files,” Bustamente said. “See if she’s updated her address.”

  I ran Victoria’s name through the system. Bingo! We hit a mother lode of information.

  Two vehicles were registered in her name. One was a 2012 Dodge Caravan minivan. The other was a 2006 Dodge Ram pickup—black. The address shown on the registrations was the same, and was on a street in nearby Polytechnic Heights. Victoria’s driver’s license showed the same address. It had been issued a little over a year ago, apparently after she’d moved out of this apartment and into her new residence. We now had a license plate number for the truck and a possible home address for Fleming.

  The detective opened his door. “Let’s go say howdy.”